Just seven games into the Premier League season, Xisco Munoz is the first Premier League manager to be gone.
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Xisco Munoz, 41, led Watford to promotion after joining the Hornets midway through last season and spent 10 months in charge at Vicarage Road.
However, after a very respectable two wins and seven points from their first seven games back in the Premier League, he is out.
The Spanish coach has left his role as the head coach of Watford with immediate effect and here is the statement in full from the club.
“The Board feels recent performances strongly indicate a negative trend at a time when team cohesion should be visibly improving. The Hornets will always be grateful to Xisco for the part he played in securing last season’s promotion and wish him well for his future career in football.
“No further club comment will be available until the imminent announcement of a new head coach,” Watford said.
We are hardly surprise this has happened, are we?
Watford’s owners, the Pozzo family, have a reputation for hiring and firing managers. It is what they do and, for the most part, it has worked really well over the last few years.
But this does seem a little harsh. It also seems like Watford clearly have a manager lined up to replace Munoz.
Our partners at Sky Sport in Italy believe that Claudio Ranieri is set for a return to the Premier League to become the new manager of Watford.
On paper their squad isn’t as strong as when they were last in the Premier League and aside from Ismaila Sarr and perhaps Emmanuel Dennis creating chances and scoring goals, they look set for a season of struggle.
They added Moussa Sissoko and Danny Rose to bring extra experience to the squad and their wins against Aston Villa and Norwich City were decent enough, as they exceeded the expectations of most early in the season.
That said, their schedule early in the season was rather favorable, and they now face a string of tough games as they play all of Liverpool, Everton, Arsenal, Man United, Leicester, Chelsea and Man City in their next eight games.
Good luck to the new manager coming in...
Xisco Munoz leaves Watford with his reputation intact, as he won 21 of his 36 games in charge. Watford’s fans are grateful that Munoz won them promotion, but also seem to be unimpressed with his tactical acumen and believe a change was needed. They were certainly dominated by Leeds in his final game in charge.
Who next for Hornets?
The obvious names are the managers who have been there, seen it and done it in the Premier League before.
Roy Hodgson, Sam Allardyce and others are being mentioned, but Watford do like to go left-field with their appointments.
Nobody predicted that Quique Sanchez Flores, Walter Mazzarri, Javi Gracia and Nigel Pearson would take charge.
Ranieri, if he does get the job, is a little more predictable. That said, after his incredible success at Leicester, he did struggle at Fulham as they were relegated after he took charge midseason.
A lot of clubs crave managerial stability, but Watford want the opposite. In the 10 years that the Pozzo family has owned Watford, they’ve had 13 different permanent managers.
Let’s see who number 14 will be.